Tag: Resilience

I won’t go into the latest news, and the (at best) deeply unsettled feeling I have sending my child to school right now. One of the most important freedoms we have in this world is choosing what we let in, and I want to honor whatever boundaries you may have around when, where, and how much of the news you’re choosing to let in at any given time. 

My focus in this post is on RESILIENCE and RESOURCING when faced with difficult–and at times traumatic–situations. 

Peter Levine, an incredible trauma therapist and teacher, has said that trauma is experiencing fear in the face of helplessness. 

Whether an event or series of events settles into the nervous system as a trauma depends on so many factors, some of which are completely out of our control.

Rather than focus on what’s out of our control, let’s take a look at ways we can build resilience that ARE within our control. What skills can we develop, what resources can we draw upon?

Here are my top 3 ways to cope with the hard stuff and increase resilience: 

Focus on the relationships in your life.
Do you have healthy, nurturing relationships? Who are you most likely to turn to when you need help? Are you prioritizing spending time with those people? Are you a part of a community of people centered around common values? Many of us have a tendency to isolate when we’re struggling–and this is the worst thing we can do. It may feel strange to reach out for connection when you’re feeling avoidant of it…do it anyway. 

Make sure you’re hitting the basics of wellness.
Water, good food, sleep, movement. Without these basic building blocks of resilience, you’re fighting even more of an uphill battle. And sometimes these basic actions are all we can do. In those times, it’s enough. So when you don’t know what else to do, take a drink of water, take a nap, or get outside and take a walk. You’ll be amazed at how these simple actions can shift your energy. 

Practice self-compassion.
What can you give yourself in this moment that’s kind and loving? Try treating yourself the way you’d treat a dear friend. Take some deep breaths with your hand on your heart, and say loving words to yourself. Every time you show yourself compassion, you’re calming your nervous system and increasing your capacity for empathy and action. 

There are so many other science-based ways to resource yourself and develop more resilience. Different things work for different people, and only YOU know what’s helpful and supportive for you. 

I’m painfully aware that some of what I’m mentioning above is a luxury, and a luxury many humans across the globe don’t have. At times I really struggle with giving myself these gifts because so many others don’t get to receive them. Why should I get to check out, take care of myself, limit news coverage when so many others don’t have that privilege?

Years ago, I was expressing this internal conflict to a therapist, and she said something to me that I’ll never forget: Hurting yourself doesn’t ease the hurt of the world. 

The world doesn’t benefit from a less resourced you. In fact, the world DOES benefit from other humans who are resourced enough to support their communities and alleviate–in whatever ways we can–the pain and suffering of others.

The more resilient you are, the more resourced…the more capacity you have to support others. 

 So take good care of yourselves and each other–this world needs a well-resourced you.

❤️,

Amy

I’ve always been someone who can see every side of a situation.  Maybe it’s the Gemini in me, maybe it’s because I grew up with two parents who came at situations from different sides, or maybe I’m just wired this way.  Either way, it’s served me well. 

As a mental health professional, as a business and life coach, and as a leader–this ability to see an issue from every possible angle has been crucial to my work.  No matter the situation, I can feel empathy and see possibilities. 

Of course, every strength has a shadow side–I can struggle with decision making because I see how any direction I turn there’s a possible solution.  

Many of you know by now that I’ve been diagnosed with cancer.

Throughout the process of diagnosis, surgery and treatment planning, I’ve noticed myself holding two seemingly opposite truths at the same time. 

I have this thing I do with my hands to remind myself that two things can be true at the same time.  I hold my arms out straight in front of me, my hands in fists, and I hold steady–reminding myself that it is ok to believe both truths at the same time.  That in fact, it’s one of those strange paradoxes of life. There are multiple (different) truths in any given situation. 

Here are the 2 truths that keep coming up for me:

I am in deep grief.  

I’m grieving my physical body never looking the same ever again.  

I’m grieving the loss of my health innocence.  I now know deep in my bones that so much of our health and our longevity is out of our control. I’m not saying there’s nothing we can do for our health; however, I also know that sometimes the spinning wheel arrow just lands on you no matter what you’ve done to try and control it.  

I’m grieving the loss of my youth.  I don’t mean getting wrinkles and gray hair.  I mean this process is aging me and due to having a hormone receptive cancer, I will be put into menopause well before what’s “typical”.

I’m grieving the loss of the self I knew. Cancer is now a part of my story and that will never go away.  Some things will never be the same as they were BC (before cancer) and that makes me so sad.

I could keep going–there are so many losses, so many things to mourn. Yet that is not the entire story, so let’s move on to the next truth…

I am in deep gratitude.  

I’m grateful for being grounded in steadiness, positivity and clarity. This isn’t toxic positivity, I assure you–the grief is there and it’s real. Yet as deep as I feel that grief down to my bones, I feel gratitude just as deeply. In some ways I’m realizing I’ve been preparing for this moment my entire life. This community I’ve built, the resilience I’ve had to cultivate, the deep sense of self I own–it’s what holding me steady and allowing me to feel positive and hopeful in the midst of so much uncertainty.  

I’m grateful for my family and my community.  The writer Anne Lamont says the three essential prayers are help, thanks and wow. I’m feeling that so deeply right now. My people have shown up for me in ways I never imagined. I am deeply loved and supported and that has never been more evident than this moment in time.  

I’m grateful for my intellect and resourcefulness.  This process is tricky and frustrating at times and frankly pretty difficult to navigate. I cannot imagine how hard it would be for someone without the resources I have.  

I’m grateful for the life and business I’ve set up for myself that’s allowing me to take the time off I need in order to move through this process.

I’m grateful for having every creature comfort imaginable to make this as comfortable and endurable as possible.  

I could go on–there are too many gratitudes to count. And what a wonderful, beautiful thing. 

Here’s what I hope you walk away with after reading this–We don’t have to BE just one thing or FEEL  just one thing.  We can be and feel lots of different things all at the same time.  One doesn’t diminish the other.  

Over the next many months, you may see me on a day that I can only access deep grief or on a day where deep gratitude is at the forefront–and that’s okay.  I believe in giving ourselves the grace to be more than one thing even when one threatens to take us over.  That moment will pass (it always does), and both things will become more accessible again. 

My truth in this journey is that grief and gratitude are always there, and they’re both necessary to support me in moving forward.

Here’s a subject that’s come up a lot for me and Jen lately in our deep-dive inner world conversations  business meetings. What does it mean to be a seeker?

For those of you who listen to Glennon Doyle’s podcast, she talks about being a seeker–and that the nature of a seeker is to always be seeking, but not really finding.  In fact, there’s danger in a seeker “finding” something, because the attachment to that spiritual paradigm, or personality type, or whatever it is can become too extreme and then block the seeker’s own inner knowing.

If you’ve ever wondered how people become enmeshed in high-control groups (“cults”), it starts with being a seeker. (I confess that “cults” are my current hyper-fixation/obsession)

Every wonderful quality has a shadow side. Seekers are curious, open, see beauty and wonder in the world, and teach those of us who are NOT seekers about the magic of being a human being in this wild world.

The shadow side can look a couple of different ways. Seekers can seem fickle, not grounded in reality, and flaky. 

Seekers can also be more susceptible to a phenomenon I like to call, in all caps, THE WAY. They can so desperately want to make sense of the world within and around them that they can give too much of their inner knowing and authority away to some force outside of them, and then it becomes not “a way” but THE WAY.

Finders look for what is already there. They often say things like “the research says…” or ask questions like “what’s the evidence for that?” They’re more logical, more reality-based. They find INFORMATION, check the source, and that’s that. They are our truth-sayers, our grounding rods, the steady hands that guide us. 

And the shadow side? Certainty and rigidity…which then blocks curiosity, personal growth and magical mystery.

Isn’t that interesting? The shadow side for seekers AND finders can involve certainty, knowing THE WAY.

Most of us are going to lean one way or the other on the Seeker/Finder spectrum. But here’s the really cool thing–we can consciously grow that more underdeveloped part! We can practice tapping into the part that is less accessible, and over time it becomes MORE accessible and available to us.

And bringing this back around to your business (I do eventually get there 😉)…

Your business needs the seeker AND the finder. The balance is essential for the gifts that each of these types bring to the table. 

We need the grounding and the dreaming, the security and the risk, the logic and the magic. Maybe you’re lucky enough to have a business partner or a team that brings all of these qualities into your business (this is probably the most amazing thing we discovered during our NLW planning retreat).

Or maybe you’re a solopreneur, and you can do more work within yourself to access both your inner seeker and your finder.

Either way, recognizing the value in both of these types and bringing their best qualities into your business could be the missing piece when it comes to growing your business.

Which type do YOU lean towards?

♥️, 
Amy (85% Finder, 15% Seeker)
Next Level Wealth Coaching 

Before there was Tina Turner, there was Anna Mae Bullock, a girl born to share-cropper parents in 1939. Her parents abandoned her and her sister at a young age, leaving them with their strict conservative grandmother.

Tina has shared many times that she never felt loved by her parents. It was with this difficult childhood history that she met and fell in love with Ike Turner, a talented and charismatic musician. She married him at the age of 22 and for years endured horrific physical, emotional and financial abuse. Their success in the music world belied the terror behind closed doors. 

When Tina finally left Ike, she did so with just 36 cents to her name. She worked any job she could find and lived in poverty, forced to start her music career all over again.

Tina performed whenever and wherever she could. Music was her passion, the one thing she loved that ever loved her back, the one thing that gave as much as it took. Though she struggled to get anyone to take her seriously without Ike by her side, she never gave up. 

And finally, in 1983, she signed with Capitol Records. 

Tina catapulted to a kind of fame she never had with Ike, had never dreamed of having before.  All those years of never giving up and following her passion had paid off.

In 1985 Tina found real love with a man named Erwin Bach. They’ve been together for over three decades now. It seems no coincidence that finding love with a partner coincided with loving herself enough to save her own life.

Tina is quoted as saying “My legacy is that I stayed on course…from the beginning to the end, because I believed in something inside of me.”   

How beautiful is that?  She didn’t say “my legacy is my music” or “my legacy is my talent.” Her legacy is that she never deviated from what she loved the most, and she was able to do that because she believed in herself against all odds.

People could control her, abuse her, abandon her and manipulate her–but she would not allow them to destroy her belief in herself and her drive to pursue her passion.

This is what ultimately got her out of that horrific marriage and allowed her to become the woman and artist she knew she could be.

Passion is defined as ‘powerful and compelling emotion.’ It’s the kind of strong and sustained feeling that just can’t be ignored.

Passion doesn’t necessarily correlate with money, or fame, or a career. It can involve those things, sure…yet it often doesn’t.

You might be most passionate about raising your children, or volunteering with animals. Maybe you live for horse riding, and your day job–though enjoyable–is more about funding that passion than anything else.

Passion may not directly make you money (or maybe it does)–but what passion DOES give to us is inspiration, meaning and motivation. In that way, passion feeds all the parts of our lives, including our businesses. Passion makes the hard parts more tolerable and the good parts more joyful.

Take a minute and consider what you’re most passionate about. What lights you up? What brings you the most joy and satisfaction in your life? What is the one thing you would continue to do against any odds? 

If you’re here on this earth, with a capacity to think and feel and act, then you’re passionate about something.  Perhaps you’re struggling to know what it is, or how to put it into words.  But trust us, it’s there 🙂

Here we are! The new year has begun! The fresh start we’ve all been dreaming of 🤩

The slate is metaphorically wiped clean. Nothing can stop us now! We’re bright-eyed, excited, full of hopes and plans and energy and vision boards and goals and…

Now what? 😳

Here’s what we humans tend to do:

• Get super excited and inspired thinking about the new year
• Vision and create lots of goals
• Make plans and create “to do” lists
• Set ourselves up with big expectations about how things will be different THIS year 
• Lose steam, become discouraged, lack motivation and then at some point in the middle of the year realize we haven’t looked at those goals and lists in months 😑
  

Here’s what we want you to do instead…Plan to fail.

Yes, you read that correctly. Go ahead and plan on failing. You might think, But what about visualizing success? Manifesting your dreams?  Yes, do that too!  One does not negate the other, and here’s what we mean…

Let’s assume there will be challenges along the way, maybe big ones. At some point this year, you will likely ask yourself (maybe multiple times)–Is this worth it? Do I even know what I’m doing? Should it be so hard if I’m good at what I do?

This is so normal! We just want to PLAN for it. If you want extraordinary success, like you’ve never seen before, then please–for the love of all that’s good in the world–DON’T just do what you’ve done in the past. Do what you know WORKS, and commit to letting go of what doesn’t!  Innovate. Learn. Take risks. And set yourself up for success by planning for failure. 

So here’s our new blueprint for the year:

• Get super excited and inspired thinking about the new year
• Create SMART goals–dream big with a dose of realism
• Be willing to shift gears–don’t get so attached to a plan that you lose flexibility 
• Decide that every challenge will be an invaluable learning and growth opportunity 
• Get support and accountability!  A mentor, a coach, an accountability partner or mastermind group. Be willing to be vulnerable, practice asking for support.
• Schedule time in your calendar to evaluate your goals–ideally monthly, but at least quarterly. Share this with your accountability team!
• Take responsibility for your actions (or lack thereof). Get real with yourself. We create our own motivation and inspiration, and when that fails, we need habits, strategies and accountability to fall back on.

So friends, keep dreaming big–your potential for success and fulfillment is limitless! In fact, the only limit is YOU.

Recently Next Level Wealth had the honor of being a sponsor for an incredible speaker. Everyone who attended this event walked away in awe of his story and inspired to do more.

Chris Singleton is a former minor league baseball player drafted by the Chicago Cubs. He is now a nationally-renowned speaker with a message of unity, resilience and forgiveness, following the loss of his mother in the 2015 Mother Emanuel Church tragedy in Charleston, South Carolina.

When then-18 year old Chris lost his mother in this racist attack, his mission changed from making it to the big leagues to rooting out racism one person at a time. He went from big brother to father figure overnight. Everything he thought he knew was turned upside down.

Chris talked about privilege through a story a mentor once told him–privilege is like being born on second base without ever picking up the bat. The issue is when you believe you got to second base by hitting a double. 

He also shared what happened when he arrived at his mother’s church after the shooting Chris desperately wanted to go inside and find her (at this point he didn’t know if she was dead or alive). He was stopped by a police officer, who told him he wasn’t allowed in.  Chris was distraught and frantic, and the officer took the time to help Chris get where he needed to be to find out more information. In the midst of the chaos, the officer stepped away from his duties to go above and beyond his job and help Chris.

He never forgot that act of kindness, and the countless other acts of kindness he and his family received during that time.

Chris challenged all of us to acknowledge our privilege and go above and beyond what is expected.

In this season of gratitude and generosity, are you holding this awareness for yourself?  Are you going above and beyond “good enough” in your life and business? Are you sharing generously with others, in whatever ways you’re able?

It’s amazing how much a simple act of generosity can impact someone’s life.  Most of the time, we have no idea just how much.

Today I was lying on my yoga mat in a 95 degree studio surrounded by amazing yogis.  These are people who can flip, contort and flex themselves into all manner of poses and inversions at will.  They baffle and amaze me.  I am not this type of yogi–I’m awkward and stilted at times, and often get stuck in poses due to very tight hips and hamstrings.  I do yoga mostly for my brain and will never be a traditionally amazing yogi.  

I was on the mat preparing for class (which means I was lying there, trying to remember to breathe and both hoping the class would start and hoping it would never start at the same time) when a phrase from my past popped into my mind that I hadn’t thought of in a long time–Less than excellent. 

Less than excellent.  I thought, this is a studio of excellence and I am less than excellent.  I let this thought wash over me without judgment, with curiosity–as yoga and meditation has taught me to do.

Twenty five years ago I went to a school of excellence, and when I became less than excellent, they asked me to leave.  Back then, mental health issues were even less directly addressed than they are now.  Though I have forgiven the school (there were ways they helped me that my adult self now understands), at the time it felt as if they were saying: we only want kids who are excellent here and this version of you–this depressed, OCD, way too sad version of you–does not belong here.

I moved through the yoga class and it was one of my best.  I felt flexible, graceful and fluid, even though I was still unable to do many of the arm balances and inversions.  As I reflected on the class and why I felt so good, I began to understand that “less than excellent” is my superpower.  

I learned a very powerful lesson all those years ago.  I did leave school and got the right support that helped me heal and understand myself at a higher level, and that experience has contributed to the success I experience today.  It led me to develop an understanding for others and their hard experiences at a deeper level.  It showed me that being less than excellent didn’t mean I had to give up, and that I won’t die from not being the best.  I became resilient, and out of all the character traits I’ve developed in my life–this is the one that I’m most proud of and serves me best.

I ended up going back to that school a few months later, stronger and still less than excellent. It wasn’t easy to face administration and teenagers who knew my story. It was kind of like that nightmare you have where you show up to school with no clothes on–it felt like everyone was staring at my insides.  And here’s what I learned: that being excellent is not the thing I need to strive for, that showing up and being the least impressive or together person in the room is ok.  I learned that none of us are excellent and that makes all of us excellent.

In business, this allows me the confidence to take necessary risks, to show up in rooms that I don’t yet belong in, to go for the thing or role I am probably not ready for.  Because I can be less than excellent, I am not afraid to fail or stumble or be vulnerable.  It allows me to show up to yoga class every day and give it my all, even if I can’t do a crow pose or a handstand.  

I’m so thankful I learned that lesson early.  Being less than excellent saved me from a lifetime of perfectionism.  There are times when I still struggle with this, of course–I like to achieve my highest goals the same as anyone else does.  Being resilient doesn’t mean I never struggle with perfectionism or disappointment–it means I don’t avoid taking risks, even though I KNOW I won’t always get what I want.  Everything that has ever meant something to me came with risks and costs, so here are two things I know for sure:  I can trust myself and my own resilience to handle whatever happens, and I certainly won’t get what I want if I don’t try.

If you resonate with my story, I’d love to hear more from you.  And if any of you reading this could use some support in building resilience and confidence, in letting go of perfectionism–we’re here for you.  

Love,

Jen